Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by LaminatorX on Monday April 13 2015, @11:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the Livejournal-still-works dept.

From the The Guardian.

Introducing the Sad Puppies...

"The shortlists for the long-running American genre awards, won in the past by names from Kurt Vonnegut to Ursula K Le Guin and voted for by fans, were announced this weekend to uproar in the science fiction community, after it emerged that the line-up corresponded closely with the slates of titles backed by certain conservative writers. The self-styled "Sad Puppies" campaigners had set out to combat what orchestrator and writer Brad Torgersen had criticised as the Hugos' tendency to reward "literary" and "ideological" works.

Today's Hugos, Torgersen has blogged, "have lost cachet, because at the same time SF/F has exploded popularly – with larger-than-life, exciting, entertaining franchises and products – the voting body of 'fandom' have tended to go in the opposite direction: niche, academic, overtly to the Left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun".

Twenty years ago, he writes, "if you saw a lovely spaceship on a book cover, with a gorgeous planet in the background, you could be pretty sure you were going to get a rousing space adventure featuring starships and distant, amazing worlds". Nowadays, he claims, the same jacket is likely to be a story "merely about racial prejudice and exploitation, with interplanetary or interstellar trappings".

And here we have the Rabid Puppies definitely not mentioning GamerGate:

Another group of allied rightwing campaigners, dubbing themselves the Rabid Puppies and led by Vox Day, real name Theodore Beale, have also added their voices to the block-voting campaign against what Day called "the left-wing control freaks who have subjected science fiction to ideological control for two decades and are now attempting to do the same thing in the game industry".

And finally a bit of Martin:

"Call it block voting. Call it ballot stuffing. Call it gaming the system. There's truth to all of those characterisations. You can't call it cheating, though. It was all within the rules. But many things can be legal, and still bad ... and this is one of those, from where I sit. I think the Sad Puppies have broken the Hugo awards, and I am not sure they can ever be repaired," he wrote.

"If the Sad Puppies wanted to start their own award ... for Best Conservative SF, or Best Space Opera, or Best Military SF, or Best Old-Fashioned SF the Way It Used to Be ... whatever it is they are actually looking for ... hey, I don't think anyone would have any objections to that. I certainly wouldn't. More power to them," he added. "But that's not what they are doing here, it seems to me. Instead they seem to want to take the Hugos and turn them into their own awards."

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 13 2015, @12:19PM

    Martin, Scalzi, and the rest of their little elitist, lefty, SJW group can eat a dick. Neither sci-fi nor the Hugos belong to them.

    They're not a majority of authors. They're not a majority of readers. They're only a majority of loud-mouthed assholes who want to censor anything that doesn't agree with their narrative.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Flamebait=2, Troll=2, Insightful=7, Funny=1, Overrated=2, Total=14
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @12:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @12:24PM (#169656)

    > Entitled

    You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @01:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @01:32PM (#169696)

    So you agree with vote stuffing? You agree that you should ruin something specifically for personal beliefs? This is the third time they've tried because they couldn't legitimately get a single author into the list, whom apparently was pedestrian enough to not be able to get voted in twice. But now, lo and behold, it's time for the "we hate gays" trolls to come out of the woodwork, and let's not say that this was some populist uprising, it only takes hundreds of people to sway this outcome which any middling author can get in the age of the internet based on ideology alone. Plainly this was a PR move that promotes racism, homophobia, and ultra-right wing libertarianism. Any grown adult realizes this is wrong. You're entitled to your opinion but you're still wrong.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 13 2015, @01:43PM

      Vote stuffing? Try again. Or do you mean that they're letting the "wrong kind of people" vote? Yeah, that's what I thought.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 5, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 13 2015, @04:27PM

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday April 13 2015, @04:27PM (#169807) Journal

        Vote stuffing? Try again. Or do you mean that they're letting the "wrong kind of people" vote? Yeah, that's what I thought.

         
        So there is nothing wrong with "mod bombing" on this site, then? Is mod bombing simply letting the "wrong kind of people vote?"
         
        For someone who thinks gaming the system is OK you sure do spend a lot of effort trying to prevent it.

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:58PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:58PM (#169828)

          Buzz is like Scalia - a man of principles and integrity (just ask him!) so long as everything lines up with his principles.

        • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday April 13 2015, @09:49PM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Monday April 13 2015, @09:49PM (#170020) Journal

          So there is nothing wrong with "mod bombing" on this site, then? Is mod bombing simply letting the "wrong kind of people vote?"

          Nothing wrong with mod-bombing on this site. It has happened to me and I quite thoroughly enjoyed it. The point is that everyone gets to vote, so there really is nothing unfair about it, unless you are a sad puppy Soylentil.

          I don't think it means what you think it means.

          And I am sure it does not mean what the Mighty Buzz thinks it means. But then, he is saying Social Justice Warrior (please spell it out for true American Glory!) as if that was a bad thing! Honestly, I do not know what to say, other than "Vote for Noah Ward in all categories!!" in the Hugo balloting.

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:40PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:40PM (#170046)

            > But then, he is saying Social Justice Warrior (please spell it out for true American Glory!) as if that was a bad thing!

            Better an SJW than a DSI - defender of social injustice.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @10:40AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 14 2015, @10:40AM (#170316) Journal

          So there is nothing wrong with "mod bombing" on this site, then?

          Honestly, I'm mystified by the obsession over mod bombing. I have yet to see anyone link to a serious case of it.

          • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:18PM

            by Vanderhoth (61) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:18PM (#170438)

            I've been out if it for awhile, what is mod bombing?

            --
            "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
            • (Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @11:39PM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 14 2015, @11:39PM (#170634) Journal
              I and bunch of my favorite sock puppet accounts (accounts that I set up for whatever reasons) mod a bunch of your posts to -1. For example, if you look at your posting history and the last twenty of your posts are all modded to -1, then that's likely a mod bombing (or you suck as an SN poster being the other major possibility).
      • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:31AM

        by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:31AM (#170162) Homepage

        As a comment on one of the SP blogs put it:

        Hugos: We need more people participating! Get all your friends to buy a membership and vote!
        SPs: Okay.
        Hugos: NO! NO!! WE DIDN'T MEAN IT THAT WAY!!

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:02PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:02PM (#169778)

      Uumm, for the past decade or two if you didn't write to the SJW plan you didn't get nominated. You could have written the best ScFi book of the year but if it didn't have themes like WOMAN POWER and how all men are SCUM, then you bloody well couldn't be nominated.
      Your book could have been garbage and had a transgender robot and that would be why it was nominated, or have absolutely jack shit to do with ScFi as long as you wrote to the SJW playbook.

      ANOTHER, group came along and sponsored regular ScFi books, and gets condemned for it. Especially because they did it within the rules, by doing the exact same thing the SJW group did.

      Would you say Star Wars was crap because there were no homosexuals in it? Would you say it's even a hate crime movie because of the lack of LGBT? Or could you just enjoy it as a fucking movie!

      SJW, it's fair for them to (ab)use the system, but you other Assholes aren't allowed!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:40PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:40PM (#170017)

        Of course there were homosexuals in Star Wars. What did you think the robots were? The gold one, the one who studied languages, was as queer as a wooden nickel, and the other was a fat metal dick on wheels. Which characters were in all the movies? The gay robots and the tall black guy (who turned out in the prequels to be white until he turned away from marriage and started serving the old man) with the big lightsaber and the penis-shaped helmet. Tell me that's not the homosexual agenda in a nutshell.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:57PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:57PM (#170062)

        Martin wrote a post "Where's the Beef?" [livejournal.com] examining that claim and found no such political bias in the Hugos. But don't take my word for it. Read his post and see if you disagree with his categorization of the politics of the winners of Hugo nominations for the past few years.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @06:21AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @06:21AM (#170239)

        OK, you little tiny penised prick! You had better learn to respect women, or you will never, ever, get laid! Do you HEAR me, dickwad? Yeah, you think Gamergate was about something. But you are wrong, you vomitious pile of unmasculine filth! It is about boys who can never be men, mostly because they are so self-absorbed and narcissistic that introvert does not come close to describing them. Black holes of sexual attractiveness that even AXE cannot redeem. Take your misogyny and shove it up yours, because that is the closest to actual love of another human being you will ever come. Censorship? Please, you are extremely lucky anyone has read your pathetic whining this far.

        Love and kisses,

        SJW, Level 1, Master Class, Anti-Misogynist Squad 34.

      • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:05AM

        by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:05AM (#170843) Journal

        Jar Jar Binks isn't homosexual? WHAT!? :O

        (I deeply and honestly pity anyone who finds this comment offensive and also wish to congratulate them on surviving so far: damn well done, very impressive!).

        --
        Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday April 13 2015, @05:30PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Monday April 13 2015, @05:30PM (#169851) Journal

    I don't know anything about Martin or Scalzi personally or politically, and I am of the unpopular opinion that Martin is just milking what could have been an interesting story. As for Scalzi, the only thing I've read by him is "Red Shirts" and it was hilarious. Totally loved it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirts_(novel) [wikipedia.org]

    Given your condemnation of Scalzi, I should check out some other things he's written.

    • (Score: 1) by dboz87 on Thursday April 16 2015, @08:11PM

      by dboz87 (1285) on Thursday April 16 2015, @08:11PM (#171712)

      Really? I thought that was pretty much the accepted view on Martin.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @06:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @06:24PM (#169899)

    Seriously, people. There are literally dozens of *fanfic* writers whose works are all-around better than his.
    When his handiwork got in effect declared comparable to Martin, Bujold, Heinlein etc. - that was beyond hilarious.
    Whatever happens to Hugo after that - I say good riddance.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @01:04AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @01:04AM (#170125)

    Pot...meet kettle.

  • (Score: 2) by naubol on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:23PM

    by naubol (1918) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:23PM (#170441)

    Beat that gorilla chest harder!